any moment now you're going to swoon
by violent darlings
Summary: Four times Nikola feeds on humans, and one time he can't. T, for a change, and a little Nikola/Five, except not really.


Four times Nikola feeds on humans, and one time he can't. An exercise in writing each drabble to exactly four hundred words - a lot harder than I thought it would be, actually.

Disclaimer: oh, if only. But alas, no. Title is from Imogen Heap's Swoon.

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><p><em><strong>any moment now you're going to<strong>_

_v_

They are all present, for the first time. It has been two weeks since Nikola changed and he is going mad with hunger; all the serums they've tried are useless and Helen is bordering on desperate. The men try to talk her out of it, but she won't hear of it. This was her idea, she says repeatedly, and she will bear the consequences. Even Nikola protests, starved as he is, but she refuses to be swayed.

Nikola needs blood and she can spare some. And so it goes.

The others stand in a semi circle around her, while Nikola sits beside her on the chaise lounge. It's all very civilised and proper, except for her companion; the very scent of her has his teeth elongated, claws bursting from his fingertips. And his eyes, an inky crimson - she cannot find Nikola in those eyes, not anywhere, not at all.

He picks up her wrist, inhales her scent, and out of the corner of her eye she's conscious of John's furious expression. But she's distracted by Nikola, the way those eyes seem to both absorb and produce light without refraction, as though a rip in the fabric of the universe that a fell light from another world shines through. It's enough to make her want to tug her wrist away, run screaming into John's arms. Except for the strength of Nikola's grasp, and the way the ridiculous moustache on his face tickles her skin as he bends his head to her pulse.

"_Oh_," he moans, and she squirms. The raw need in his voice makes her dizzy; he is reduced to mere groans, a great man brought low. "Helen, please," he whispers, and she nods without thinking because he is begging but Nikola doesn't beg and this is her last thought before he sinks his teeth into her wrist and she loses consciousness.

She wakes to the sound of John shouting and Nigel whispering and James trying to talk John down. And Nikola? John has him in a headlock but poor Nikola looks sick with guilt. She wants to tell him not to be.

She's had a part of him inside of her, fangs like needles seeking the vessels beneath her skin, and now there's a part of her inside of him, forever. They have marked each other.

And she can't imagine going back to the way life was before.

_iv_

Nigel is still riding the high of a successful heist when he finds him. It's only Nigel's third robbery, but given his new ability they are laughably easy. He thinks out of the Five he is the most fortunate, because he can both use his ability to its fullest extent and not fear it. John is afraid to go beyond the borders of England, and James is still adjusting to his vastly heightened intellect. Hell, Tesla still flinches when he gets a whiff of someone's blood, and he was a cold bastard to start with.

And that's how Nigel knows something is wrong. The man is slumped a park bench, for Christ's sake.

"Griffin," murmurs the vampire hoarsely. It doesn't take a genius to see the lines of strain marring Tesla's face. It takes even less of a genius for Nigel to know what he's going to do about it, even if Helen and James will have his guts for garters later for breaking Tesla's regime. It's obviously not working.

So Nigel takes him home to his flat, a shabby affair that the money in his bag will go a long way to remedying, Tesla collapsing onto the sofa like a marionette with sliced strings. Nigel pulls out a wineglass and nicks his wrist in a smooth, clean motion. Tesla's head jerks up, eyes wide and black, and when Nigel walks across the room to hand him the glass, Tesla nearly rips it from his hands.

It is an unnerving sight. Tesla gulping down the blood, a fey creature in the lamplight. It is an eerie sort of intimacy as they'd witnessed months ago when Tesla had drank from Helen, a sensuality, and Nigel turns away. He'd prefer not to see _that_, thank you very much.

He keeps his gaze on the wall for long minutes but when he hears a small, almost pathetic whimpering noise he turns back. Tesla is hunched over the glass, shoulders shaking.

The man's not coping. He might be a bastard, but he's still a man. Nigel drops onto the sofa, awkwardly hauling the younger man into a one-armed hug. Tesla melts against him and it would be strange if not for that they have the same blood coursing through their veins, the same adoration for science, and because he was wrong, before.

Nikola's not afraid of his 'gift'.

Nikola's just afraid of killing someone.

_iii_

John's bloody sick of the way Tesla looks at Helen.

They're all a little bit in love with her, and it's a fact that has never been disputed. It takes a singular sort of woman to convince four men to stride with her into the unknown - Helen's will is a force of nature. Nigel loves all women and James is fonder of men, there's no contest there. But Tesla? Tesla watches her with adoration and avarice and awe all mixed up in his eyes, and John loathes it. Helen is his, wears his ring, and Tesla ought to know it. But he doesn't, so John is going to teach him a little lesson.

He switches Tesla's medication.

He watches Tesla fall apart and although James and Helen work the clock 'round to solve it, they cannot find the cause. It amuses him. And this is how it comes to this, Tesla frantic and pacing, and hesitatingly suggesting he go out and do it... the old fashioned way.

"If you kill someone, she'll hate you," John croons, and Tesla actually whimpers. John hates him, hates his desperation and his wide, needy eyes, and wants to stab him and shoot him and hang him and oh, no, not kiss him, no, not at all.

"John, help me," he beseeches, none of his usual pride in his voice. John drops his trousers, and Tesla looks at him like he's run mad.

"What are you..."

"Relax, Tesla," he growls, sinking into his chair and tapping his femoral artery. "Come now, we haven't all day." And it's ruined a little when Tesla capitulates completely, it would have been a sweeter victory if he'd argued, but then Tesla on his knees, biting deep. There's nothing sexual about it, but there's a terrible kind of submission in Tesla's posture, his deference, such total surrender. Tesla is desperate and John controls him utterly, even as he feels his head lighten and the world begin to swim from blood loss. "Enough, Nikola," he growls, forcing the vampire's head back and his teeth from the wound. Tesla obeys, but remains on his knees, lapping the last of the blood from outside the wound. James aside, John has never really cared much for relations with men, and Tesla repulses him.

But bringing him low like this gives John a rush akin to killing.

John sits back, and enjoys the view.

_ii_

James is very drunk and very happy. It is not the behaviour of a gentleman to get so thoroughly inebriated, but Tesla has turned up out of the blue and it was really a very foolish move to get into a drinking competition with him.

Everything Nikola says is very funny and not nearly so cruel as usual, but it might just be the blanket of wine-scented clouds wrapped around James that makes it appear so. He is reaching for a letter from Helen to show Nikola when his hand catches against a letter opener and the sting reaches him through the fog.

"Oh, blast it - " The crimson wells up and James unwinds his cravat to press against the wound. When he looks up, Nikola's teeth are extended and his claws are embedded in the wood of the armchair. He is staring down at them as though he has no idea how it happened.

"It really has such an effect on you?" James asks in raw fascination. Tesla looks up, face open and vulnerable for all its inhuman characteristics, and James regrets the question.

"Every time," Nikola finally replies, retracting his claws with some effort.

"I want to feel it," James says, with uncharacteristic recklessness, and maybe Nikola is just a little drunk too, because he sweeps across the room and pins James against the desk, and sinks all those terrible teeth into James' throat.

James moans, and he wants to punch himself in the face at the low, needy tenor of it. But Tesla is making the same noise back in his throat, a rumble of pleasure, and when he pulls away James is breathless. Perhaps he should scream in horror, but he kisses Nikola instead, and the world becomes a blur.

"Have you done this before?" James asks as Nikola works diligently as his waistcoat. You can never tell with Tesla.

The man in question arches an insouciant eyebrow. "My dear James," he drawls. "A gentleman never tells."

James laughs, and retorts, "You're hardly a gentleman," and any response Nikola might have been about to make is swallowed up when James kisses him.

There is no more talk after that, only hands, fumbling at shirt buttons, at trouser lacings, and they collapse to the floor.

The next morning Tesla is gone, and James will think it all a dream, but for the marks on his throat.

_i_

Nikola's about to come apart at the seams.

He can't think, can't speak. His medication is with his nutrients and animal plasma, both of which are in his suitcase and heading somewhere far away. It irks him to have to depend on mortals for assistance with such menial tasks as travelling, especially now his suitcase is accidentally on its way to Africa.

New York, New York, indeed.

He is running from the rest of the Five, from Oxford, from the memories. But more than that he is running towards the future, to a world shaped by him, marked by him. Sanguine vampiris is his legacy and his destiny all wrapped in one, and the thought of what the future holds is enough to leave him breathless.

Although that might just be the hunger, the reverberating echo everywhere he goes of heartbeats, of blood rushing through veins. So much blood and he can have none of it, he's tormented by it, it's all he can hear and all he can think of and why oh why didn't he keep his medication with him? He's going to go mad, he's going to -

Hell with it.

Whores are everywhere, he's discovered, and if it's good enough for Johnny, then it's good enough for him. He finds one soon enough, walking down a main street as he beckons her from an alleyway, tempting her into the dark. "Come here," he murmurs, turning on the Tesla charm, and the whore approaches with a sort of mindless obedience in her sky eyes. "Good girl," he croons, and when she surrenders into his embrace, it is all too easy for him to press his lips to her throat. And oh, it's wonderful, it's heaven and sweetness and pure perfection and oh, what is that noise.

She is screaming. He growls and holds her tighter, biting deeper, and the noise stops abruptly, but now he's wondering why she was screaming when it felt so good, surely it felt the same for her...? He manages to drag his mouth away from her throat, to see her nearly unconscious. The girl whimpers in mindless fear, her blood still sweet on his tongue. Wide eyes and blonde curls, nothing like Helen at all, and barely alive.

He throws her down into the gutter, running like the devil is at his heels, and for the first time feels like a monster.


End file.
